Changes galore at Jack Falstaff

Amanda Berne

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, March 8, 2006

Some people might say that by naming your restaurant after a mercurial person -- real or fictional -- you're just asking for trouble. And that just might be the case at Jack Falstaff (598 Second St., at Brannan), the Plumpjack Group's San Francisco restaurant honoring William Shakespeare's rowdy, roguish character.

The restaurant's chef left late last year, and now its general manager is gone, too.

A recent lunch revealed how much Jack Falstaff's menu has changed since James Ormsby departed in December. Gone are the slow-roasted pork and duck liver flan, replaced by habanero-tinged ahi tuna tartare and braised short ribs from new chef Jonnatan Leiva.

The menu has more of an international flair, mixing Latin flavors with tinges of Indian seasonings and accompaniments, and a little Cajun on the side, all with slightly lower prices to appeal to the ballpark crowd.

The front-of-the-house operations are also in flux, with general manager Annette Yang leaving to go to Home. PlumpJack hasn't named a replacement.

Yang has a long history in Bay Area restaurants, with stints in management at the now-defunct Gordon's House of Fine Eats and 42 Degrees, and the still-strong Foreign Cinema (2534 Mission St., near 21st Street).

She joins Home as the newly created director of operations.

According to Yang, the new position will help the company expand beyond its two San Francisco locations, either into the East Bay -- Walnut Creek, Danville and Lafayette are top choices -- or south, in Palo Alto or San Jose.

"The menus will remain similar, but not exactly the same, at all of the locations," says Yang. Expect the continuity to extend to prices and atmosphere, too.

Sound familiar? It should.

In many ways, Home is following a similar path pioneered by Chow, which came onto the scene in 1997 in the Castro (215 Church, near Market) with an affordable menu and quality ingredients in a casual atmosphere suitable for friends, family or Grandma.

Five years later, the first Home opened almost across the street from Chow, at 2100 Market St. (at Church), featuring a similar aesthetic of reasonably-priced, homey, good-quality food in an appealing setting. Both places have since opened second locations in the city -- Park Chow in the Inner Sunset (1240 Ninth Ave., near Lincoln) and Home in the Marina (2032 Union, near Buchanan).

But Chow owner Tony Gulisano's big coup was his move to Lafayette, where, he says, there were few exciting places to eat out on a Saturday night.

Under Yang's tutelage, Home is looking to tap into a similar void.

"As we move into future locations, we hope to get a sense of the neighborhood and reflect that in the space," says Yang.

Gulisano says he welcomes the competition. "I consider it flattering, and expect that more and more colleagues will be doing this sort of thing in the future," he says.

Gulisano also confirmed that he plans to continue expanding Chow, and is looking at the Peninsula and Marin.

While lying in bed last week with the flu, I realized: We are a city short on delivery food.

OK, so there's greasy, half-soggy Chinese and pizza, but beyond that, San Francisco is at a loss. There is Waiters on Wheels, but there's a $25 minimum charge, plus $8 for delivery and, as its Web site states, a 1 1/4-hour wait. Next week Luna Park (694 Valencia, near 18th Street) will start delivery in select neighborhoods, including the Castro, Mission, Bernal Heights and Potrero, for an extra $3 per order, with no minimum.

Owner A.J. Gilbert was inspired by recent visits to New York, where he says many full-service restaurants deliver, including Keith McNally's Schiller's Liquor Bar and Balthazar.

Almost everything on the Luna Park menu will be available for delivery, including the beloved s'mores, which will arrive with assembly and microwave instructions.

As the rains continue, some North Bay businesses are still struggling to recover from damage sustained from flooding earlier this year.

Marin Sun Farms Eatery in Point Reyes Station (10905 Hwy. 1) had been in business just six months before it was forced to close.

"In physical damages, the costs totaled around $400,000," says owner David Evans. The company has had to cut back on its farmers' market business, too, currently keeping only the stand at San Francisco's Ferry Building.

Evans hopes to reopen the Point Reyes restaurant next month with a better menu and new equipment, after minor construction and cleanup work on the interior.

It's a more positive outcome than that of another area business, the century-old Inverness Store (12784 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Inverness).

"By the time we got here, Inverness was a lake," says owner Nav Singh. "It is pretty bad, with severe damage, and our insurance policy didn't include floods." She and her husband, Raj, took over the store in 2003, and this flood wiped out much of the refrigeration, shelving and perishables.

Singh describes the sight of jars of organic products floating by and all of the frozen goods being lost. It would have been a complete disaster, she says, if area residents hadn't jumped right in to help.

"We would still be here cleaning up if it weren't for the community," says Singh. "Forty to 50 people came to us, without our asking, to help clean up."

She also said that the winter months are traditionally hard anyway, and fears that this loss could close them for good. "We are hoping for an early and very hot summer."

For once, I say bring on the tourists.

Bay Area restaurants have seen a flurry of recent chef changes.

Aaron Zimmer has stepped in for Peter Rudolph as chef de cuisine at the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay (1 Miramontes Point Road). He comes, most recently, from CityZen in Washington, D.C., where he was sous chef. He will be responsible for the upscale Navio and the more casual Conservatory; his menus will start in April. As reported previously, Rudolph is now executive chef at Campton Place (340 Stockton, near Post).

At Tra Vigne in St. Helena (1050 Charter Oak Ave.), Eric Torralba has left after just six months. "I am too French," he says. Managers at Tra Vigne confirmed that they were looking for a more rustic Italian style. For now, executive sous chef Nash Cognetti is stepping in.

Torralba was chef-owner of the now-closed Antidote in Sausalito, where his cooking included dishes such as "Like a sardine touched for the very first time!" and, for dessert, "The Apricot Problem." No word as to what he'll do next, but he says he would like to remain up north.

After a long search, the Kimpton Group has hired David Cohen as executive chef of the popular Scala's Bistro (432 Powell, near Post St.), replacing the long-gone Staffan Terje. Terje is working on opening his own San Francisco restaurant. Cohen was most recently a chef instructor at the Professional Culinary Institute in Campbell.

Scala's menu will remain rustic Italian with country French influences. Cohen will put his own stamp on it after he returns from Kimpton Group training in Seattle.

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